Her Weight in Gold and others Part 22

"Thanks for the confidence, but it will do you no good. I am not the sort of woman to be thwarted, once my mind and heart are fixed on a thing. Whether you like it or not, you shall be my husband before you're a day older."

"Never!" he exclaimed, his eyes flashing.

Before he could make a move to defend himself, she clasped him in her strong, young arms and was raining pa.s.sionate kisses upon his lips, his brow, his cheek.

Weak from the effects of the chloroform, his struggles were futile. He would have struck her had there been a weapon handy.

"I'll die before I'll marry you, Elinor Crouch," he shouted, freeing himself at last.

"We'll see about that," she said, standing off to survey him the better. "I'll give you until tomorrow night to submit to my demands, peaceably and sensibly. Then, if you are still obdurate, we'll see what starvation will do to--"

"You wouldn't starve me, you wretch," he cried in horror.

"It's a most efficacious way of bringing a man to terms," said Miss Crouch, fixing him with glittering eyes.

"By Jove," said he, shaking his head in despair, "I knew we'd come to this sort of thing if we pa.s.sed that infernal law giving you women the upper hand of us."

"We only ask for equal rights, my friend," she said. "This is the sort of thing you men used to do and no one made a fuss about it. Now it's our turn to apply the whip."

"I'm blessed if I'll vote for another woman, if I live to be a million," he growled.

"Oh, yes, you will. You'll vote just as your wife tells you to vote, and there's the end to that. But, I can't stand here discussing politics with you. I give you until tomorrow night to think it over. A justice of the peace will be here to perform the ceremony. You know I love you. You know I'll make you a good wife--a devoted, adoring wife.

I am fair to look upon. I am rich, I am of good family. Half the men in the town would give their boots to be in yours. You have but to say the word and we set sail this week on my yacht for a honeymoon trip to the ends of the earth. Everything that love and money can procure for you shall be--"

"Stop! I will hear no more. Leave the room! No! Wait! Where am I?"

She laughed softly. "You are where no one will ever think of looking for you. Good night!"

She turned and went swiftly through the door. With an execration on his lips, he sprang after her, only to find himself confronted by two vicious-looking women with pistols in their hands. With a groan, he drew back into the room. The door closed with a bang, the key turned in the lock, and he was alone to reflect upon the horrors of the fate ahead of him.

Elinor Crouch was a beautiful girl, and an alluring one. Even though he hated her, he was forced to admit to himself that she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. Not once, but a hundred times, had he pa.s.sed judgment upon her physical charms from a point of view obtained in his club window, but always there had been in his mind the reservation that she was not the sort of woman he would care to marry.

Now he was beginning to know her for what she really was: a scheming amazon who would sacrifice anything to appease a pride that had been wounded by his frequent and disdainful refusals to become her husband.

Would she carry out her threat and starve him if he persisted in his determination to defy her? Could she be so cruel, so inhuman as that?

He was considerably relieved after the few hours of sleep that followed his interview with the fair Miss Crouch, to find a bountiful and wholesome breakfast awaiting him. True, it was served by an evil-appearing woman who looked as though she could have slit his throat and relished the job, but he paid little heed to her after the first fruitless attempts to engage her in conversation. She was a sour creature and given to monosyllables, this Quinlan woman.

Reynolds had been brought up to respect the adage concerning "a woman scorned." He knew that women in these days are not to be trifled with.

If Elinor Crouch set about to conquer, the chance for mercy at her hands would be slim. There was absolutely no means of escape from his prison. Daylight revealed a most unpleasant prospect. The barred window through which he peered was fifty or sixty feet from the ground, which was covered with jagged boulders. On all sides was the dark, impenetrable forest which marks the hills along the Hudson. After a few minutes' speculation he decided that he was confined in an upper chamber of the pump house connected with the estate. Investigation showed him that the bars in the windows had been placed there but recently.

In considerable agitation he awaited the coming of night, fully determined that if the worst came to the worst he would accept starvation and torture rather than submit to the cruel demands of Elinor Crouch. He would die before he would consent to become her husband.

She came at nine o'clock, accompanied by a fat little woman in black, who was introduced as a justice of the peace.

"Well?" said his captor, with the most enticing smile. "Have you decided, Cuthbert?"

"I have," said he resolutely. "I want to warn you, Elinor, that you shall pay dearly for this outrage. I shall--"

"Then you consent?" she cried, her face aglow.

"No! A thousand times, no! I mean--"

"You are wasting your breath, Cuthbert Reynolds," she interrupted, a steely glitter in her eyes. "Justice Snow, will you proceed at once with the ceremony? I will not--"

Reynolds sprang past her with the agility of a cat and hurled himself through the half-open door, hoping to find the way momentarily clear for a dash to liberty. Even as hope leaped up in his breast it was destroyed.

Two brawny figures fell upon him at the landing and he was borne to earth with a fierceness that stunned him into insensibility.

When he regained consciousness a few moments later, he was lying bound on the bed. The grim figure of the redoubtable Quinlan sat in the rocker over against the door, and there was a scornful leer on her thin lips.

"Bread and water for you, my laddy-buck," said she, with a broad wink.

"What a blithering fool you are. The finest lady in the land wants to make you her husband, and you kick up a row about it. You--"

"You go to the devil," said Reynolds savagely.

Quinlan laughed.

For four days and nights, he remained in the small, bare room. Each day brought his persecutor to his side, and on each occasion she went away baffled but hopeful. She pleaded, stormed and threatened, but he held steadfast to his resolve.

"I'll die a thousand times, you fiend, before I'll consent to this ceremony. Go on starving me, as you've set out to do. What will you have gained in the end?"

"At least the consolation of knowing that no other woman shall call you husband," she said vindictively.

He was thin, emaciated and hollow-eyed for lack of proper sustenance.

His captors gave him barely enough food and drink to keep body and soul together. Once a day the gaunt Quinlan brought bread and water to his room, and once the beautiful Elinor forgot her cigarettes and a bonbon box on leaving him in a rage. He hid the boxes after emptying them, cunningly realising that if he ever escaped her clutches the articles would serve as incontrovertible evidence against her. But Quinlan and Brown, strong and vigorous, were more than a match for him in his weakened condition. They choked him until he revealed the hiding place of the two gold boxes. Then they beat him cruelly.

"If you tell the boss that we beat you up, young fellow, you'll get your come-uppin's good and plenty," said Quinlan savagely, as he fell back exhausted in the corner. "You keep your mouth closed, if you don't want it closed forever."

"If you have a spark of humanity in your soul, woman, you'll give me food," he cried. "I am dying. Have you no heart, either of you? See here, I'll give each of you enough money to keep you in comfort for the rest of your lives if you'll--"

"None o' that, Mr. Reynolds," snapped Quinlan. "What do you take us for? Men?"

"Gad, I wish you were," he exclaimed. "I'd thrash you within an inch of your lives if you were."

"Well, don't go to offering us money, that's all. We're women, and we don't sell out a friend. Say, ain't you about ready to give in to her?

You'd better say the word. She'll make you the happiest man on earth.

What's more, you'll get a good square meal the minute you say you'll marry her."

"I wouldn't marry her if she were the last woman in the world," he cried. "Listen to me! Haven't you two women husbands who are dear to you? Haven't you husbands--"

"They're both in the penitentiary, curse 'em," snarled Brown, clenching and unclenching her hands. "I wish I could get my hooks on that man of mine, that's all."

"Lucky dog!" said Reynolds.

"You bet he's a lucky dog. I believe he got sent up deliberately."

"Well, he's only got eight more years to serve, Brown," said Quinlan.

"He'll come back to you for food and clothes. Then you can make up for this lost time."